Sept. 26 – Join us for our Regenerative Agriculture Events

Dani Gelardi is the Senior Soil Scientist and Climate Coordinator at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, where she leads soil and climate efforts including the Washington Soil Health Initiative. She is also Adjunct Faculty at Washington State University in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. Dani received her PhD and Masters in Soils and Biogeochemistry at UC Davis, as a Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Fellow.

Jonalee is currently the interim General Manager of Yakama Nation Farms. She is an enrolled member of the Yakama Nation and a graduate of Washington State University. She has previously served as the manager of Yakama Nation’s Agricultural Development Program, and prior to that, worked in Yakama Nation Fisheries Management Program, primarily focused in climate change planning and regional Salmon restoration. Since May of 2022, Jonalee has been closely working to assist with the Yakama Nation’s efforts in transitioning their newly acquired 1,500-acre grow/pack/ship produce farm in Wapato Washington, previously owned and operated by the Inaba family for over 100 years, to tribal management. Yakama Nation Farms proudly grows 500 acres of certified organic and 1000 acres of conventionally grown row vegetables, as well as various varieties of melons and squashes. Through expanding existing partnerships and creating new opportunities to support local communities, the Yakama Nation hopes to provide consistent, fresh high-quality and healthy produce options to the tribe’s 12,000 members, our neighboring Tribal nations, and local and regional communities. The Yakama Nation envisions a future with increased food sovereignty and food security by using agriculture as a tool to strengthen Treaty Rights in their home territories.

Jonalee was born and raised in Toppenish, Washington, and has worked for the Yakama Nation since graduating from Washington State University with a B.S. in Natural Resource Management and M.S. in Environmental Science in 2004. She enjoys music, cooking, travel, and the outdoors. She also helps manage her family’s beef cattle and horse ranch, and participates in traditional gathering, hunting, and fishing activities.

Douglas Poole operates Double P Ranch with his wife Tina and son Lane in North Douglas County Washington.  Double P Ranch is a dryland cropping and livestock system operating in 6″-9″ rainfall zone.   Double P Ranch raises canola, wheat, sunflowers, oats, triticale, millet and sorghum.  The ranch averages 1,000 acres of cover crops per year rotated through the cropping lands based on levels of degradation and weed pressures.  All covers are grazed at least once a year. 

Double P Ranch has eliminated all in-furrow nitrogen and replaced it with forms of calcium, elemental sulfur and worm castings.  Plant nutrition needs are based on SAP sampling and applied via a foliar program.  Worm casting extracts have replaced most seed treatments.  

Jonathan Cox is CEO of the Soil Center and Vice President of Science & Technology, at Double Diamond Fruit in Quincy, Wash. Passionate about sustainable soil practices, Cox has a family history in agriculture and a doctorate in chemistry. He launched The Soil Center to help transform agricultural byproducts into soil amendments and encourage regenerative farming practices at scale.